West Hartford Resident To Lead Children’s Storytelling Workshop “The Paintings Speak”

HAMDEN, CT – Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum at Quinnipiac University will host the three-day workshop, “The Paintings Speak: Creating Dramatic Monologues Inspired by the Artwork in Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum,” from Wednesday, August 16 to Friday, August 18. The workshop is for children between the ages of 9-12 and will run from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. each day.

The workshop is designed to educate children about the Irish Famine, which occurred from 1845-52 when blight destroyed virtually all of Ireland's potato crops, according to a release. (To sign up for West Hartford breaking news alerts and more, click here.)

The crop destruction, coupled with British governmental indifference to the plight of the Irish, who at the time were part of the United Kingdom, resulted in the deaths of more than 1 million Irish men, women and children and the emigration of more than 2 million to nations around the world.

Storytelling is an intrinsic part of Irish folklore. The children will work with a professional storyteller and learn about this spoken art form.

They will view the museum’s paintings and sculptures and select one to use to create a dramatic monologue, which will be performed on the final day of the workshop.

The workshop will be lead by West Hartford resident Sara deBeer, a poet, storyteller and classroom teacher.

“By taking part in the three-day workshop “The Paintings Speak,” and creating their own performance pieces, participants will appreciate the ways visual artists convey both history and emotion,” deBeer said in a release. “They will also gain a deeper understanding of the period of time known as Ireland’s Great Hunger. Finally, they will discover their own capacity to use the spoken word as a vehicle to express all they’ve learned.”

deBeer works as an artist-in-residence in public and private schools, designing programs which tie in with ongoing studies of social studies and language arts. Under the sponsorship of the Robert C. Bates Fellowship and a Yale summer grant, she spent the summer of 1980 studying storytelling traditions in Ireland; this was the foundation of her lifelong love of Irish history and folk literature.

Registration forms can be found at www.ighm.org. To pay the $45 registration fee for the three-day workshop, please call the museum at 203-582-6500.

All registration forms must be completed and submitted and payment received before the workshop begins.

The museum is open Wednesdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Fridays, and Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Sundays, 1-5 p.m. Museum admission is free.

Image courtesy John W. Morgan